Havard wrote:Originally, Mordenkainen was modelled after Gary Gygax. Not unreasonable since he was Gary's character. Later on, he got the band visage as he was made to resemble Sean K Reynolds during the WotC era.

IIRC the bald Mordy first appeared with the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer cover:

Sam Wood, one of the 3rd edition concept artists, did a lot of Greyhawk concept art circa '99 (including the various races of the Flanaess, Iuz, and Mordenkainen) and conceived of the bald Mordy look.

In-character, it's conceivable he shaved his head after Rary's betrayal as a sign of grief/penance/whatever.

Out of character, in 2nd edition he was over 80 years old, keeping himself in a state of robust middle age with potions of longevity. In 3rd edition, potions of longevity no longer existed and with the onset of old age his hairline began retreating.

ripvanwormer wrote:
Out of character, in 2nd edition he was over 80 years old, keeping himself in a state of robust middle age with potions of longevity. In 3rd edition, potions of longevity no longer existed and with the onset of old age his hairline began retreating.

Wiat, they removed potions of longevity in 3e?!?!? <snort> What nonsense.

ripvanwormer wrote:
Out of character, in 2nd edition he was over 80 years old, keeping himself in a state of robust middle age with potions of longevity. In 3rd edition, potions of longevity no longer existed and with the onset of old age his hairline began retreating.

Wiat, they removed potions of longevity in 3e?!?!? <snort> What nonsense.

They shortened lifespans too. I'm not sure what they did in 3x, but in 5e, none of the demi-humans have the life-spans they had in 1e/2e eras.

The Ming look was why I always hated the 3x+ artistic renditions of Mordenkainen. Not that I hate Ming, he's an excellent bad guy; its just that Mordenkainen had an original look about him, and now he looks like someone else.

I would'a said the same thing had any artist drawn him to look more like Gary's original inspiration of the character: Dr. Strange.

A big THANKS! to Giant Space Hamster & Chimpman for the cookies! (Dark Side be damned!)

Havard wrote:[Originally, Mordenkainen was modelled after Gary Gygax. Not unreasonable since he was Gary's character. Later on, he got the band visage as he was made to resemble Sean K Reynolds during the WotC era.

Do you think they changed Mordenkainen's appearance to remove the reference to Gary Gygax.

grodog wrote:

Havard wrote:Is there an in-game explanation to why he lost his hair?

Presumably the side-effect of some artifact that the recovered?

A cursed magical comb, perhaps.

ripvanwormer wrote:Sam Wood, one of the 3rd edition concept artists, did a lot of Greyhawk concept art circa '99 (including the various races of the Flanaess, Iuz, and Mordenkainen) and conceived of the bald Mordy look.

Has anyone ever interviewed Sam Wood and asked him why he decided to reinvent Mordenkainen?

ripvanwormer wrote:In-character, it's conceivable he shaved his head after Rary's betrayal as a sign of grief/penance/whatever.

Out of character, in 2nd edition he was over 80 years old, keeping himself in a state of robust middle age with potions of longevity. In 3rd edition, potions of longevity no longer existed and with the onset of old age his hairline began retreating.

No potions of longevity in 3rd Edition?

Are they actually banned from 3e, or just not something that was added?

Are they actually banned from 3e, or just not something that was added?

They're not banned, per se, they just don't exist. When they were reworking magic items for 3E, they made a lot of changes to better redefine the various types of magic items. One of those decisions involved making the decision that potions were always liquid forms of spells- ie, if it didn't have a spell counterpart, you could no longer make it into a potion and, further to that, that you could only make potions of 3rd level or lower spells (oils also fell into the same category, just with a different method of application).

Thus, as there was no longevity spell, and even if there were, it would doubtless have been of a higher level, there were no longer potions of longevity.

That led to certain items that were formerly potions turning into wondrous items, even though they were still effectively potions (ie, philtre of love). It didn't always make sense, but there you go.

(The staff of withering was similarly dropped, as there was no equivalent "aging" spell to imbue into a staff, which was a requirement of staves in 3E, that they be "spell containers," functionally higher level wands- which could only hold spells up to a certain level I can't recall offhand.)

Overall, pretty much anything related to aging was dropped in 3E initially other than age categories for PCs: ghosts lost their aging attacks, etc.

I don't recall any discussion during any of the playtesting or release relating specifically to why the aging stuff got largely dropped, but if I had to hazard a guess I'd say they did for two reasons:

1) Aging penalties adversely affect certain races more than others (short-lived races feel the effects much more quickly and damagingly than longer lived races);
2) Negating physical aging penalties (via potions of longevity while still allowing aging bonuses to mental abilities tended to be unbalancing as it more favorably benefited spellcasting classes; note that all "age negating" special abilities in the game (like the Druid's Timeless Body capstone ability negates both penalties and benefits).

Given 3E's emphasis on game balance, these things were probably considered to unwieldy and it was just easier for the design team to jettison them rather than redesign.

And that's all my OT knowledge for today, folks!

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Big Mac wrote:Do you think they changed Mordenkainen's appearance to remove the reference to Gary Gygax.

I wouldn't think so. If they had wanted to do that, then I think it would have happened prior to 3E, back during the Lorraine Williams era, when they were doing all they could to get rid of Gygax. Mordy didn't go bald until 3E, which was a period when Peter Adkison had gone out of his way to make amends to Gygax and bring him back into the fold, so to speak.

I think it was just a matter of changing times, changing artwork to accompany the Greyhawk style that Todd Lockwood brought to 3E. That, and perhaps a changing aesthetic in the attitude towards baldness from the 70s and 80s to the 90s and more recent times. Chalk it up to Dennis Franz and Bruce Willis, who made the bald look sexy for men (white men, at any rate).

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Havard wrote:Originally, Mordenkainen was modelled after Gary Gygax. Not unreasonable since he was Gary's character. Later on, he got the band visage as he was made to resemble Sean K Reynolds during the WotC era.

Sources please? Mordenkainen doesn't look much like Gygax (for a wizardly depiction of EGG, see the 384th Incarnation of Bigby's Tomb in Polyhedron #20). 3E Modenkainen is a portrait of Anton Lavey, not SKR.

grodog wrote:
IIRC the bald Mordy first appeared with the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer cover:

He's first bald on Todd Lockwood's cover of TSR Jam, released January 1999, then LGJ#0 in July 2000, then the LGG in November 2000.

Sean K. Reynolds wrote:Many people see that Todd’s depiction of Mordenkainen is bald with a goatee, and wonder if I was the model or inspiration for that character’s look, either here or on the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. Answer: No, but I was the model or inspiration for some other characters he’s painted, which I’ll mention in future blogs. Lockwood says Mordenkainen is based on illustrator Fred Fields, a WotC temp as the tiefling, cartographer Dennis Kauth as Elminster, Lockwood himself as Raistlin, artist Sam Wood as the space trooper, and head cartographer Rob Lazaretti as the vampire Strahd.

Wow. I did not check out everyone SKR mentioned as inspiration, but it seems that the art does take quite a development. I would never have guessed Fred Fields as the inspiration for Mordy. (Still love Fred Fields "Birth of Night" which graced a Dragon cover at some point, btw)

Between TSR JAM 1999 and the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, bald Mordy appeared on the cover of Living Greyhawk Journal #0:

Also, Theodain looks very eastern in there. Love that I can see the actual stars in Starcoat's coat (but you're gonna have to go after a bigger picture to see these details, couldn't upload a bigger image in here).